Delhi University's B.Tech students protest against scrapping of their course

NEW DELHI: Hundreds of B.Tech students of Delhi University today staged a protest outside the Vice Chancellor's office, demanding that their four-year B.Tech course should not be scrapped.

Protesters raised slogans against Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Smirti Irani and University Grants Commission (UGC) and held placards like -- "We want B Tech", " UGC down down", and "Hum hamara hak mangte nahi kisi se bhik mangte".

Students began their protest from the VC's residence and ended it outside his office.

They even tried to enter VC's office, but were stopped from doing so by the personnel of Delhi Police and Rapid Action Force (RAF).

The agitating students demanded that their course should not be converted to B.Sc citing it will hold no value for them.

"We don't want Delhi University to scrap the B.Tech course. If B.Tech gets scrapped, our future will get destroyed. We will not sit silent till our demands are met," Rajesh Choudhary, a protester.

"We had enrolled in DU for a four-year B.Tech programme and we expect to obtain the same. We have no problems if all the other courses are of three years' duration. But our course should remain a Four Year course," Arjun Malhotra, a student of B.Tech in Computer Science, said.

The students had staged a protest outside the UGC office yesterday demanding the same.

Under pressure from UGC to act on its directive, DU yesterday scrapped its four-year undergraduate programme ( FYUP) and reverted to the previous 3-year structure.